Pandemic baby: let’s be gentler on ourselves!
There are so many disadvantages, it’s true, but we shouldn’t put aside the little bit of beauty it may have brought, because there is and we should stay optimistic!
Welcoming a baby in the midst of a health crisis
All situations are different. There are parents who had their baby a few months before the health crisis began, those who experienced childbirth during the lockdown, those who are pregnant right now, etc.
Personally, I fall into the first category. My baby was a month and a half old when everything was shut down in mid-March 2020. I was just starting to get a taste of real life, just coming out of my first month postpartum and was slowly learning about my first baby and my role as a mom.
No matter what your situation is, as a new parent during this time we are going through, it is not easy.
Being deprived of seeing our families and friends is often the most difficult thing in general. At least for me, that’s what I find the hardest. It’s so far from what we thought life was going to be like, real life with a new baby.
The expression “it takes a village to raise a child”, let’s just say that it’s not this year that we’ve been able to put it into practice!
It’s a lot of things that we will never experience and, sadly, moments that will never come back.
A little beauty in adversity
Yes, there are many negative consequences from all of this. As much for the development of our babies as for us.
However, I want to highlight the few small positives that this challenge has brought us, because the negative stuff, we talk about enough.
In my opinion, we have all understood better what resilience and caring is in the last year. It’s like paramount to get through. And what about our ability to adapt, especially as new parents. It’s awesome!
We also found a concept that we all missed a bit: time.
If COVID-19 was able to allow families to get together and spend precious moments together, no matter how trivial, it would have been good.
Finally, bonds were strengthened with some friends or family members. It’s in difficult moments like these that we realize who are the people who matter most to us. Daily Facetime conversations with our loved ones have become a part of our lives and it keeps us connected despite the physical distance.
In baby’s eyes
Finally, I figure that baby will never have known that he missed a ton of friends’ dinners, that he spent his first Christmas on Zoom, or that he never went to a restaurant.
From his point of view, he will have had his parents with him 24 hours a day for the first few months of life, and that’s pretty much all that matters to him. Love at will, sometimes served by parents who are up to their elbows in it, but very present.
I think we are good. We made it through a year of global pandemic with new babies.
I repeat: we have made it through a year of global pandemic with new babies! Yes, that’s not nothing.
So, let’s take the time to be gentle with ourselves: let’s see how much we’ve managed to accomplish and what we’re doing better despite all the pockets around us.
Baby is happy, he has everything he needs and does not know what he is missing. We should see life more often through his eyes, right?
